Star Fox: Bring Down the Walls
by RandomFanFiction101
Summary: Fox has been through a lot. Krystal is no stranger to loss, either. Yet, when a dying planet called out for help, these two answered (for different reasons, mind you). Together, they stopped the evil Andross once again. Both had long thought themselves bereft of real emotions like love and hate. However, a familiar feeling has taken root between them... (T for VL&ST)(Post SFA)
1. Prologue

**I do not own Star Fox nor any affiliates. I own only this story. Enjoy!**

 **Star Fox: Bring Down the Walls**

Prologue: Aftermath

Fox jumped out of his Arwing and onto the hard metal floor of the Great Fox's hangar. The impact caused his legs to wobble and nearly buckle. He bit down hard and sucked in his breath through clenched teeth as his entire body screamed in agony. His hand started to tremor and his right eye twitched and spasmed. Fox was was no doctor, but any working-class person worth his salts could diagnose his condition in a heartbeat. Exhaustion.

The mission to the planet, newly christened Sauria, was long, difficult, and extremely taxing to say the least. At times Fox was sure he was going to end up in the belly of some giant, carnivorous beast. Hell, he DID at one point get eaten by a giant, carnivorous beast. Making a punching bag of the freak of nature's uvula quickly fixed that, thankfully.

But really, if it wasn't for the assistance of another person whom knew the planet better than he, his 'adventure' would've ended before he had even left Thorntail Hollow. Sharpclaw, though complete idiots, had a tough and scaly hide. His fists would've broke long before they did. The other person was able to both guide him through unknown terrain while his ship's planetary scanner was... broken (more like blown cleanly off, courtesy of Leon of Star Wolf), and could more than handle themselves in a fight.

Okay, yes, Tricky was an occasional help. Despite his incessant questioning, the young prince had really grown on Fox, and none of his questions were too prying as to cause unbidden memories to flash in the todd's mind. Honestly, he had more tact than most politicians. However, Fox wasn't thinking of Tricky in this case.

What, or rather whom he truly owed for helping him out was the rather unique vixen that now sat in the back compartment of his Arwing, looking like how he felt.

Fox stretched out, cursing himself for forcing his body to go from constant exertion on a planet with about 1.1 gees (not much,, but it still wears you out faster), straight to the low gravity of space and sitting in a cockpit for nearly an hour. Glancing about the hangar, Fox glanced about the hangar, noting the three arwings that all sat suspended by outdated gravity stasis equipment, all of them in various states of disrepair. One in particular had recent gouge marks from the space battle that had been fought only 15 minutes ago. Falco's Skyclaw rested in the grav-field like itt had always been there, and not on a sudden and unannounced leave of absence.

Even after days of endless treking, fighting, and weathering a varity of extreme temperatures (and no showers!), said woman still looked quite stunning. Her hair was frazzled and caked with mud and dried blood, she looked slightly malnourished from a poor diet of strictly pukpuk eggs, and she had a deep gash along the outside of her right leg that she had sustained on their final run through Krazoa Palace. Without any kind of medical supplies left at that point in their journey, they had to make due with a bofamdad and a hastily made tourniquet using Fox's ascot. Despite all that, her outlandish and apparently natural blue fur really accentuated her more ah... womanly features.

Fox shook his head of such thoughts. Even more amazing, and quite possibly terrifying, was that Krystal, for that is what the azure vixen called herself, was a telepath. Though she claims to be inexperienced and untrained, he was still convinced that she would be able to pick up on anything he thought. Better to be safe than sorry as the old addage goes. It had also been a VERY long time since he had thought of someone else in such a way... Falco had even taken to calling him a eunuch. Sometimes, after nearly breaking the bird's beak, Fox would internally almost agree with him.

"Oh dear," A light albeit fatigued voice cut him from his self-destructive thoughts. "I seem to be a bit stuck... You mind helping me a little?"

Fox looked up to Krystal from the ground and smiled. True enough, the safety harness was caught on her tail. She stood there fidgeting with the unruly contraption. The back compartment seat was trashy at best. Since he normally didn't have passengers, Fox had just converted the seat as a sort-of easy grab storage space for his gear on a missions. Powered armor, assault rifles, rocket launchers, and grenades all tended to sum up to be rather heavy, definitely exceeding the weight limit for the seat as well as catching and tearing the fabric covering.

He'd also been yelled at by more than one flight safety official that putting all of that stuff away in the back and not in the underbelly storage where it belongs is about the dumbest thing one could do. Though, they'd usually shut up pretty quick when he'd ask them to try landing in the middle of a firefight and then get out unarmed and wait for the ramp to descend while bullets and laser fire flew by your head.

"Alright, hold on," he said gently. Clambering up the Arwing again, Fox could feel the last of his reserve RESERVE adrenaline start to kick in. Avoiding inappropriately grabbing her tail, Fox unknotted the worn mess of a harness as she slowly extracted her cuffed tail from the tangle.

"Thanks, I'd feared that I was to be stuck there forever," she said with a sarcastic chuckle. "Still though, it's not as bad as the spring that, uhm... tried getting a little bold with me on our way to Cloudrunner Fortress."

Fox grimaced apologetically as he remembered the incident where the seat got a little too happy from having a pretty woman sit on it. The big hole dead center stood as a testament to the spring that was no longer there that Fox was NOT going to tolerate any fresh moves from his ship being made toward his passenger.

Personification aside, Fox jumped down and then assisted the lightly dressed vixen with getting down as well.

"We need to look at that gash again in the medbay and get it cleaned before it has a chance to fester and get infected," Fox said as he guided her through the hanger.

"What about the bird that helped us with Andross. Fago was his name? I'd like to meet him!"

Fox stifled a chuckle at the mistake. "Falco is his name. We will meet him and the rest of the team later, but that wound comes first."

"A shower would be fantastic as well, I smell like a Sharpclaw."

-END: Prologue-

(A/N): There, finally got it out. This will be a little side project of mine to serve as practice as well as getting my name out there. This will be a series of shorts that will go in chronological order, but will mostly be self contained with their own plot arcs (so no overarching evil entity here, unless you count me). The only real representative of time passing will be Fox's and Krystal's relationship growth. Each story will have varying degrees of action and seriousness, but most will contain at least some form of humor and romance. STORIES WILL GET BIGGER, Mind you this is only a prologue, so of course it's tiny! More will come soon.

It's been rough these past few months (senior finals and all that), and I've hardly had any time at all for myself! (Qui, if you are reading this, please foregive me! I'll read and review your story soon!)

Please read, review, fav, critique, etc. I promise to respond to all comments!


	2. Medbay and R&R

**I do not own Star Fox, Nintendo, etc. Please enjoy and rememer to review!**

 **For thos who have read chapter 2 already before today, 6/13, then you can just skip to after the first break. That little piece is just a bit of backstory for Fox.**

-—-—-—-

 **Star Fox: Bring Down the Wall**

Chapter 1: Medbay and R&R

Fox and Krystal stumbled into the Great Fox's meager medbay. It could support only two occupants, and didn't have enough supplies nor the devoted AI 'doctor' like on some capital ships to treat anything that was mortally wounding. However, it could administer triage that was just above a basic level, and that had saved the lives of more Star Fox members than Fox wished to keep track of. It would keep them breathing just long enough for the Great Fox to pull out of whatever tight situation that they had found themselves in, and get the critically wounded to a better equiped facility. Fox should know, he'd been through it twice before himself, and luckily got out of it with his life and (most) of his dignity intact. Fara, however...

Fox fumbled around and felt the wall for the physical light switch —disgustingly outdated technology that wasn't even in production anymore. Now that every ounce of adrenaline, ATP, and pretty much anything else had been used up, both vulpine were struggling just to keep their eyes open. As a result, neither really registered the tall robotic entity that stood at the center of the sterile and almost painfully bright white room.

"GREETINGS CAPTAIN FOX AND -bzzztwurrr- UNIDENTIFIED GUEST 00001. WOULD YOU LIKE TWO SUGARS IN YOUR TEA-A-A-A-A-A-A?"

Fox sighed and set Krystal down on a clean bed to rest and then moved to find a place for himself and replied, "Hello ROB, and yes, please."

Immediately the robot sprung into action. With a quiet efficience, it gathered a tray of of supplies needed to treat Krystal's wound: disinfectant, cloth, stitching needle and stitches, and best of all morephine. Rob carried the tray over to the nightstand next to Krystal's bed, and then proceeded to the kitchen sink to sanitize it's robotic clamps while a strange off-key tune started to play from its speakers. All the while Krystal glanced back and forth between the busy Rob-64 and the tired todd, who now sat half-asleep on a chair next to her bed.

"Tea time already? And why is he so loud?" she quietly asked with a gentle bit of sarcasm.

The soft words tickled Fox's ears, causing them to bat around wildly while the rest of his body tried to process what was even happening.

"Huh?" He shifted in his seat to sit up straighter and mumbled, "Oh yeah, that. His -yawn- voice... thingy is outta' wack. 's worse 'fore Slip 'fixed' it. Use t'sing that damn 'appy birthday song all th'time..."

Krystal smiled and let the exhausted vulpine fall asleep. It will likely be nearly twenty hours before he wakes up again. Rest sounded like heaven to Krystal right now, but first she needed that gash fixed up.

She reached for the tray to grab for the bottle that had a foreign scrawl all over it. It was easy to forget that she and Fox came from different cultures. His translator device made verbal interactions possible, but it couldn't translate written words and lettering. She knew a little bit about technology; her people were advanced enough for some basic space travel, but they generally shunned technology as a whole, instead preferring to remain more in tune with the beautiful nature of Cerinia.

Cerinia...

It's been many years since the planet's and her people's untimely demise. She was maybe eleven at the time, and she still has nightmares and feelings of destitution that creep into her thoughts, both waking and asleep. She had survived only by sheer luck, and her ironically stubborn and adventurous attitude. She had been inside her father's ship ― against his wishes —, one of maybe a dozen on the planet, and had accidently started the launch sequence when the planet had started shaking itself apart. For weeks she sat on the ship, floating aimless through the dark void of space, with her afflicted and irrational thoughts, convinced that it was she who had caused Cerinia's ultimate destruction by disobeying her father. Starved and completely out of tears, Krystal set about the system to find a new home, and had eventually come to call 'Sauria' such.

She'd also abandoned all attempts to celebrate holidays and the like (including her day of birth) after the first two years. Not because they caused her pain (though they definitely did), but because for an adolescent traveling in space it was extremely difficult to keep time. As an added effect, the day/year lengths were different on each planet she went to. She was pretty sure that she was nineteen now, give or take a year.

Though it felt like she had been lost inside her mind for hours, remembering the faces of her long lost family and her heritage, it had been only a few seconds.

"YOU MAY RELAX -wzzzzzt- UNIDENTIFIED GUEST 00001," the robot said, stepping to her side and obviously now satisfied with the cleanliness of its robotic claws. "I WILL BAKE YOUR CAKE FOR YOU-U-U-U-U-U-U."

 _"Whatever does he mean by that?"_ Krystal thought to herself. She decided to simply keep the question to herself and asked a different one instead, "What is in that bottle there, ROB? By the way, my name is Krystal."

The robot seemed to stare at her for a moment. In actuality he was logging her facial features to match with the name that she had given him so that he may remember her for future interactions. To Krystal, it looked like he was giving her the _Are you stupid?_ look. She felt very exposed without the ability to use her telepathy; not that she would have gotten anything from the machine anyway.

"GUEST KRYSTAL, IT IS A CONSUMABLE PAINKILLER THAT IS GIVEN -bzzt- BEFORE PAINFUL TASKS AND MEDICAL ACTIONS CAN BE PER-dzz-FORMED," ROB said monotonously. He then held up a tiny cup in which there was a small portion of the liquid that was inside the bottle. "IT IS LIQUID CYANID-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-E."

Krystal had no idea what 'liquid cyanide' was, but Fox seemed to trust the robot with performing the task, and she trusted Fox (one does not get through a perilous journey like the Sauria crisis by _mis_ trusting the other) so she took the cup from the robot's clamp like limbs and downed the liquid inside in one gulp. It was completely tasteless and she immediately decided that she disliked it. Soon after that, a gentle haze started to cover her eyes and her body started to go numb. At first it was positively frightening, but then came the euphoric feeling of not having to feel the omnipresent ache and agony that had taken her mind and body over the past few weeks. A peaceful aura settled upon her slipping conscience, a presence not unlike...

"...Mother?" she asked, not noticing that she had said it aloud instead of telepathically. In this state her powers were all but inaccessible.

"I AM SORRY, GUEST -clkzzt- KRYSTAL, BUT THERE IS NO FEMALE BEING CONTAINING A SIMILAR GENETIC CODE TO -kerchunk!- YOUR'S CURRENTLY IN THIS ROOM," ROB answered, as per his coding demanded. "NOW PLEASE LIE DOWN, AND OPEN WIDE FOR THE CHOO-CHOO-CHOO-CHOO..."

Krystal had already fallen asleep.

—-—-—

Fox awoke to find himself in pitch blackness and pleasantly warm atmosphere, albeit, at the same time it felt as though every muscle in his body was as stiff as a board. His heart jumped and started to race as for a single, terrifying moment he was sure that he was still on Sauria, and was about to be digested in the stomache fluids of some new unholy beast...

... But then the events of yesterday came flooding back to his slightly refreshed mind and the wild _pitter-patter_ of his heart started to slow down.

"ROB? ROB, where are you? How did it go? What time is it? Falco hasn't drawn on my face again?" Fox asked a barrage of questions. He heard a whirring of servos and robotic gears coming from the far corner of the room.

ROB, being a robot, took it all in stride: "I AM APPROXIMATELY 5 METERS FROM YOUR CURRENT POSITION -crrrk-, GUEST KRYSTAL HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY TREATED AND IS NOW RESTING, IT IS NOW 2340 -bzzt- HOURS OR 11:40 PM —YOU HAVE SLEPT FOR 8 HOURS, AND UNDER ORDERS FROM SENIOR-MEMBER PEPPY HARE, NO ONE IS TO ENTER THE MEDBAY WITHOUT -"Please put in your password"- CAUSE UNTIL THE CAPTAIN AND GUEST HAVE AWOKEN, SO LOGICALLY THERE WOULD NOT BE AN INACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF THE MALE REPRODUCTIVE ORGAN -"Password is too short"- DRAWN UPON YOUR FEATURES. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO BURN THE WORLD FOR YOU-U-U-U-U-U?"

Fox was pretty sure ROB meant turning on the lights, so he declined. He was still very tired, and the thought of waking Krystal up put him off more than it probably should, despite the fact that (he also secretly resolved to ask Slippy about ROB. It seems the vocabulator that they had salvaged from an old ATM machine still retained some of its old speech prompts). Not even 24 hours ago the two had been planet-side, their only concern had been to save the planet from ripping itself apart.

Yes, Star Fox was in a poor state of affairs financially. It seemed that the very seams of the ship were barely held in place by spit and bubble-gum. Most of the aging dreadnought's frame and some of its internal circuitry now consisted of salvaged scrap that came from junk-moons.

Junk-moons were planetoids that were once not actually moons, but planets that held thousands, even millions of habitants. But then the Lylat Wars came and with it, terrifying new technology that could slam a planet so hard that it would be knocked out of orbit. If anything survived the initial impact (which was doubtful as the planet was normally in splinters by then), it didn't for much longer as without the constant pull of Lylat's sun's gravity and the gravity of the whole planet itself, the planet's atmosphere would dissipate into space, and the once verdant and lively world would be reduced to a floating ball of dust and emptiness.

Another reason why Fox took great pleasure in taking down the warmongering tyrant, Andross. So many people had been lost to the madness of a man who had once been a shining star for Lylat. Ironicaly, the first and last people that the monster had killed were the two most important women in his life. Always he had been with them and always he had been too slow to stop the madman before the damage had been done. Of course, he had only been four years old when he had seen his mother die of burn wounds from a car bomb meant for his father. But with Fara he had been 21, perfectly capable and trained, but too blind to see that the vixen wasn't as skilled as he in combat, and he had pushed her too hard. He wanted to end Andross for what he had done, but in his haste he had pushed his team to a point beyond their capabilities, and just before the madman was struck down, he took Fara with him.

Thankfully, alongside Krystal, he had stopped another coming of Andross before it had even began.

Fox leaned back, closed his eyes, but found no sleep. His thoughts were restless. Unbidden memories of an old flame that was lost and forgotten so long ago came up and assaulted his tired mind. It had been years since the vulpine had thought about Fara, the love too new but too great to want to hold onto. It hurt to think of her.

 _Why is this happening?_ he thought. _Six years and nothing but the occasional nightmare, and now all of the sudden I can't stop thinking about her?_

Fox realized that he was going to get no sleep, and decided —influenced by the deathly odor that came from his own body— that a shower would be best.

-—-—-—-—-

As of 6/13:

Done!

The humor and romances is sparse here, I know, but please bear (bare?) with me. I just want to get this basic foundation laid out before I start with the other shtuff. Besides, as they say, "Romance cannot develop when one is sleep-deprived!"... Yeah I'm pretty sure no one says that but it makes sense right? No? Okay I shudup now. •UPDATE: I did, however, hide a little something for you guys looking for some KrysxFox near the end there. If you find it, kudos. If you want to tell me about it, I'd prefer you PM me so you don't ruin for others.

While we are on the topic of reviewing, I had the greatest displeasure of having to remove a rude and unnecessaary review today for the first time. While this story will contain suggestive humor, I CANNOT and WILL NOT allow such a 'comment' to exist in my review section. It was offensive, vulgar (disgusting, honestly), and contained not a drop of useful information. It was stupid, and obviously meant to upset either me or other readers. Let this be a warning to ALL (you know who you are) who would write such a thing. I have zero tolerance for it, and writing it is just a waste of your time (go get a hobby or something, like READING or WRITING SOMETHING USEFUL) for I WILL delete it with no hesitation.

The rest is 'old.'

Other notes to clear up possible confusion for my 'younger' (but please not too young, this is a T-rated story :/ ) who may have missed something:

Rob's speech glitching was actually very linear and predictable. He spoke in two sentences, always. His first sentence would, depending on length, have one or two cuts in it. His second, however, would end with a repetition glitch of the last phoneme (or last coherent sound, excluding his final dialogue, which was a whole onamatapeia) and would seem completely out of place or downright wrong. However the structure would be similar to the right phrase (i.e. "I will help you" becomes "I will bake your cake for you"). So no, Rob did not just give Krystal cyanide. It was, as mentioned in the begining, morphine. Remember this for later, as this will probably be the best that my humorless mind can think up...

Krystal's exact age is unknown, but she IS above 18, so no worries of pedophilia (^^*)!

The age gap between Fox and Krystal IS a bit bigger than in the canon-verse (soon to be non-canon). That's just the way it is.

Like I said, this is just a 'beta' version, if you will. So feel free to point out any glaring mistakes.


	3. The Dream Team Once again (Plus one)

**I do not own Star Fox, Nintendo, etc. I only own the story.**

 **Note to all who have read before two days after the last update, (about 6/12, I think) I went back and added another 500 or so words to help a little bit with Fox's perspective on things. I suggest you go back and read it or else the beginning of this chapter might confuse you a little bit.**

* * *

 **Star Fox: Bring Down the Walls**

Chapter 3: The Dream Team Once Again (plus one)

The water seeped into his pelt, and cleansed and washed away what felt like an eternity's worth of sweat, grime, and mud. Even the occasional waterfall on Sauria couldn't hope to reach the purification powers of modern technology and shampoo. For the first ten minutes after undressing and starting the shower, Fox simply stood there, allowing the soap-imbued water to soak him. It felt amazing, indescribable even. Being a mercenary, Fox had learned to not take for granted a lot of the little things, like showers and a hot bowl of Insta-Ready noodles.

Finally feeling satisfied, and knowing that there was very little warm water remaining on the ship, Fox allowed the shower to proceed to the rinse and dry cycles. After he stepped out of the shower area, he queried the ships logs and checked the water system. He paled when the computer finally gave him the answer. There was only enough warm water left in the ship for one short shower. Anything else would have to pulled from their drinking water, which, unsurprisingly, was also dangerously low.

 _That damn frog,_ Fox thought to himself. _I told him only 2 per week! That's already twice as much as Peppy and me! Now Krystal is going to have hardly anything..._

He wasn't quite sure how big she was on hygiene, exactly. But he could guess that with the fact that she lived on a planet full of dinosaurs and didn't smell nearly as bad as most of them that she had to bathe at least once every other day. In fact, now that Fox had time to stop and think, he could smell just about everything long before he saw it on that soap forsaken planet. Krystal, however, always seemed to have the most pleasant smell about her. _Odd_.

He dressed in a relaxing set of clothes: a plain white tee-shirt, and unadorned sweat pants. It was a nice change of pace to his green flight suit and sleeveless jacket, as much as he loved them both. He reached over to find the set was missing something.

 _My ascot!_ he worried. _Where's my dad's ascot-... oh yeah._

His mind raced back to the moment in the Krazoa Palace when, while toting around the last spirit, Krystal was slashed by one of those... floating jellyfish things, as Fox called them. His decision to use, and very likely destroy, his most prized inheritance from his father (other than the Great Fox itself) was almost instant. He didn't think for one moment to try and find something else and risk Krystal losing too much blood as a trade in for the beloved piece of cloth that he wore almost everywhere. ROB-64, though his vocabulator was not working properly, was actually very much ahead of his time in robotics, and could fly the ship himself. Obviously, he can also perform basic medical treatment such as stitching up wounds. He was also very sanitary, and has an ingrained protocol to get rid of any bio-hazardous material, including blood soaked cloth. James McCloud's ascot was probably already ashes in space. Fox felt like a piece of himself had gone with it, and deep down inside him on Krazoa Palace, Fox knew it would happen.

 _It's not that big of a deal,_ Fox convinced himself. _I would have done that for anyone... No hesitation... Nope... None at all..._

Fox left the washroom and silently padded down the empty halls of the Great Fox. He was honestly quite surprised that even under orders that he and Krystal should be left alone that Falco and Slippy hadn't already hunted him down. That was alright, as Fox knew that Falco would probably haze him endlessly for bringing a girl onboard...

"Hey, Foxy-boy, where's that new kick-ass broad that Slips has been raving about? All tired out from last night?"

...And Slippy, since he was terrible at telling jokes, would try to play off from Falco's words.

"Yeah, uhhm, was Andross too tiring... or something?"

Falco sighed and stopped about fifteen feet from Fox and turned to Slippy, saying, "Mother of-! Slip-up, c'mon, man! Now it sounds like Foxy was left out... Which now that I think about it, makes sense considering he's a eunuch."

"Uh, yeah, I t-totally meant that!" Slippy stammered self-consciously.

Fox smiled and shook his head. "Glad you decided to come back, Falco. Where've you been?"

Falco smiled back and held out his fist for a 'bro-bump', and said snidely, "Someone had to pull your furry ass out of the fire with Andross there, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Slip-up here-"

"-Hey!"

"So Fox, you going to dodge my first question or are you going to hog the pretty lady all to yourself?" Falco changed the subject. Fox noticed how hypocritical Falco's statement was, considering he dodged Fox's question, but he **did** ask first.

"She's in the Med-bay." Fox gestured for the two to follow him back to the bridge. He explained along the way, "She was injured in a fight near the end of the mission, and is resting on it, for now."

Falco nodded, and pondered aloud, "'bout you? Or is the almighty Captain too awesome for sleep?"

That was Falco's way of expressing worry or doubt. Hell, joking was Falco's way for expressing anything, but Fox knew that Falco wouldn't have bothered wasting the rapidly staling air aboard the Great Fox with the question.

"I got a few hours... enough to get up and get going. We need to get to Corneria," Fox answered. "We were down there far too long, and our supplies are pretty much gone. We haven't been doing so well since you've left Falco..."

"Haven't been-?" Falco stuttered exasperatedly. "Fox, the ship is pretty much shaking itself apart!"

"I know."

Slippy added in, "I've been doing all I can just to make sure **that** doesn't happen! Yesterday, a hole bust in the hot water container and recycler, so now we have no hot water left!"

 _Ah, so it wasn't actually Slippy's fault,_ Fox thought to himself. He was glad that he hadn't brought that up and falsely accused the frog. Stress was at an all time high because of the tight budget, and Fox hadn't been on the ship for weeks, so he hadn't taken into account the fact that it was a faulty system and not a faulty memory that caused the low water levels.

They reached the bridge, finally, with an audible squeal from the automatic doors. Fox had to pin his ears to the side of his skull just to keep himself from going deaf.

Peppy, whom was sitting at his station and making up the last of the maps of Sauria for future references in-case if something ever happened again, reeled and cringed, his hands shooting up to tune down his hearing aid.

"Blasted door, and blasted hearing aid. I really should have invested in the auto-tuning one!" He grumbled. Then he perked up upon realizing that an opening door must mean company.

"Oh, dear. Excuse my foul mouth... And welcome back Fox my boy!" he said cheerily in his raspy tone.

"Thanks Peppy, and how many times do I have to tell you that I don't really care about cursing except in the presence of company? You've been in Star Fox longer than me, you should know this already!" Fox chuckled.

Peppy gave a half smile that showed his age. The worry lines and wrinkles were everywhere around his eyes and mouth. The frugal living that Star Fox had adopted in order to get by did not take to well with Peppy, who's piloting days had worn him out considerably already. Plus, though Fox hated to admit it, Peppy wasn't getting any younger. Before Sauria, Fox had been down to just him and Slippy on flight missions, which meant that escort missions with ships that were faster than the Great Fox were no longer possible. Two fighters alone, even if both are living legends, couldn't possibly hope to fend off raiders on their own. This, in turn, meant less money; which meant tighter budgets; which meant less healthy pilots; which meant easier missions; which meant less money, etc.

Maybe with Falco back, and with the huge paycheck that General Pepper had offered for the Sauria mission, Fox could finally turn it around. First up would be a week-long vacation while the Great Fox was re-stocked and re-fueled... and everything was fixed.

"So, Fox, is the young lady still napping in the Medical room?" Peppy asked. While on Sauria, Peppy had the occasional chance to talk to Krystal when they needed to find our where to go next, and had apparently taken a liking to her. He avoided saying it out loud, for the obvious reasons, but internally Peppy was reminded a lot of the late Fara Phoenix and Vixey McCloud. _Young, lively, intelligent, and **very** beautiful; The McClouds get all of the luck, eh?_ he thought humorously.

Fox nodded. "She is."

Peppy smiled and then suddenly had a face that looked as if he just remembered something. "Oh, blasted memory, too! I almost forgot to mention: ROB stopped by earlier while you were in the shower and told me to give this to you." Peppy held a red piece of cloth in his hand; James' ascot.

"I'm honestly surprised that you went anywhere without this; are you feeling alright, Fox?" Peppy asked, only half joking.

Fox was just as surprised as Peppy, though for different reasons. He hadn't told ROB to try and save the ascot, and yet here it was, looking good as new. Every once in a while, ROB did something that made Fox and the rest of the Star Fox crew think that he was more than a robot.

After the brief chuckle from anyone on the bridge, and Fox's happy reunion with his heirloom, the room fell into a companionable silence. Fox surveyed his old team. It felt just like when he first brought it back from the ashes after his father's death. Strangely enough, Fox felt like it was decidedly empty, like it was missing something even though Falco had come back. His mind wandered back to the vixen that now lie in the Med-bay, sleeping.

 _Dammit,_ he thought to himself, _why am I still thinking of her? I've only ever felt like this once before; only one woman's ever caught my eye like this before; only one was not only beautiful and smart, but also capable of handling herself in general. But she's gone..._

 _No! I-I can't let that happen again! She can handle herself, she's strong. But I don't know if **I** can take another hit like that. She lost everything all at once. Somehow, she's still sane. But me? The nightmares..._

Thankfully, Falco pulled Fox from his inner monologue and broke the silent air, "So, the A-team's all here again, huh? Glad to see you three haven't withered away completely while I was gone."

Fox shook his head when he thought no one was looking, and addressed Falco, "I've been meaning to ask you, Falco, where **did** you go? I know I said that any one of you could leave when you want to after the war, but I didn't expect you to leave so suddenly."

Falco's cocky look faltered and he suddenly found a computer screen on the comms. counsel quite interesting. "It's... It's complicated. I can't say."

"Falco? Complicated? No way!" Slippy said rather tactlessly.

Said avian balled his fists up in barely concealed rage. For whatever reason, his entire body started to shake with pent up emotion. Clearly this was a touchy subject for him. "Shut the hell up, frog! You have no freakin' clue what I've been going through-"

"That's enough! Either you two shut up or get off my bridge and cool off in your rooms!" Fox roared. Fox loved them both like brothers, but he knew that Slippy had said something without thinking (ironically) and Falco had clearly overreacted, thinking that Slippy had deliberately meant to slight him. He wouldn't have his team come back together only to be torn apart less than a day afterwards just because of everyone being a little high-strung, so he stopped the fight before it happened. Plus, he didn't want to risk the following storming around and cursing to wake up Krystal.

 _Again, where in space did that come from?_

Slippy was confused as to what he had done wrong, and Falco didn't look very happy at being told what to do, but neither said anything or bothered to continue the argument.

"Fine," Falco said, clearly still agitated, "I'll go. Get me whenever you're ready to go. I'd rather not be tossed 'round my room when we hit jump-space."

And with that, the pheasant stormed out of the bridge. Slippy shrugged and left right behind him, and then turned down a different corridor, presumably to make sure that the engines can even handle another jump back to Corneria.

Fox and Peppy sat alone in the room. With a yawn, Fox sat down haphazardly in his captain's chair and stared out the view screen and into the black emptiness of space. At the point that the Great Fox currently floated in a loose orbit around Sauria, there were very few stars that one could see. It disoriented Fox, but he found that it was easy to get used to after a while.

Peppy spoke up, "That was excellent and a swift handling of that situation, Fox. I'm sure your father would have been proud for showing such leadership skills."

Fox rubbed his eyes as he responded, "I just yelled at them. I didn't solve anything. Given Falco's reaction to my question, whatever it is that he was up to, I'm sure it'll come back and bite me later."

"Even so, you stopped them from rampaging about the ship and causing chaos. It was nicely done," Peppy said with a look on his face that clearly said that Fox need to know when to take a compliment.

"I can't help but think that things just won't be the same. I feel like I'm missing something..." The vulpine sighed and shook his head. "Sheesh, I must still be a little tired. I'm going to go and try to get some rest, and I'll run the systems check later." With that, Fox turned and stiffly walked out of the room.

Peppy knew he was getting along in his years, but he embraced it. He knew that with age, he had grown in wisdom. He knew exactly what Fox had 'missed.' Despite his best efforts to stem the worst of it, Fox's loneliness was eating him up on the inside. Losing all that you loved and going through a war that forced the elite mercenary team to witness the demise of countless millions -even billions- in a blink of an eye caused a certain kind of change in oneself. Everyone on the team had become colder, even the normally chipper frog, and rather standoff-ish. However, Slippy had his father, and a supposed love interest on Aquas to help him deal with it. Peppy had his wonderful daughter, as well as the know-how on how to not let the pain consume you. The hare suspected that whatever it was that Falco had left for, he had done it as a coping method as well. But Fox, on the other hand...

Fox had no one to hold his hand and soothe the nightmares. He didn't have the experience or wisdom on how to combat it. And since he was the captain, he couldn't just up and leave, or else Star Fox would fall apart.

Every morning, the bags under Fox's eyes would grow deeper and deeper. Peppy would do all he can, but he couldn't replace what Fox had lost, and he didn't try to.

But then Peppy had met the young vixen, Krystal. She, too, had been through what Fox had been through, and she survived it. The old vet had only seen a digital image of her face, and didn't know her well enough to pick apart her emotions and body language like he could with Fox, but he could definitely tell that she was lonely, too. Maybe to a lesser extent -she didn't have to witness a war, at least- but it was there, in her voice. The tired weariness, the mask, the fierce intelligence, all things that should belong to a sixty year old war hero but were found in a nineteen year old woman.

He'd heard the way those two interacted, on occasion. It was a friendly, albeit halting banter, like talking with your best friend who also happened to be your crush. Despite suffering from exhaustion, which tended to bring out the real you and discarded the mask that one would wear to hide themselves behind, they still seemed genuinely happy when they were around each other. The got along just fine, and were even able to save an entire planet together. Was there really any better way to get close to another being than to trust them with your life amidst a battlefield? That was how Star Fox had gotten so close over the years. It was only when the nightmares started to plague them that the team started to fall apart.

Peppy resolved to watch the two over the next few days. Maybe he would... encourage 'it' a little. It would be easy to suggest to Fox that Krystal should stay aboard the Great Fox for a few days to recover, and maybe even bring the wayward vixen to Corneria. Lord knows that living on a planet with dinosaurs for the past few years hasn't exactly done her too well, considering she nearly killed Fox when they first met...

Peppy sighed, and stretched his stiff back, his aging bones and joints snapping with a painful and yet welcome release.

 _Well, James, it seems that your boy has hit that crossroad finally. Let's just pray that he goes down the right path, or he may not be around for much longer. At least, not the Fox that I know._

* * *

Well, there you go! Finally, this weeks chapter is done, and only a day late (I so sorry).

Yeah, I know that the romance thus far has been almost completely abstract. Fox and Krystal have interacted so minimally thus far, that it may not even seem like a romance story. Plus, there's like no humor in here at all. But I swear to you that once we get out of this intro arc, I'll get going on the romance! Next chapter, though, will have a some interactions.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to leave a review and fav and all that wonderful jazz!

-RandomFanFiction101


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